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More flexible opening for young urged

GPs need to adopt more flexible opening hours as part of a raft of changes to make surgeries more suitable for the needs of young people, a review has concluded.

Proposals also included assessing practices with 'mystery shoppers' and kite-marking them as young-person friendly.

Researchers examined how well surgeries shaped up in providing for young people, and found flexible opening hours were vital to make services more accessible to patients aged 10 to 24.

There are concerns that practices are now less suitable for young people's needs, with the number of Saturday morning and evening surgeries dropping since the introduction of the GMS contract.

Professor Andre Tylee, professor of primary care mental health at Kings College London, who led the review, said young people sometimes worked extremely long hours. 'Young people do have a view and they need a voice. There's little guidance at the moment about how to engage people in primary care.'The report was published in The Lancet.